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The “Woodland Skills Centre” provides woodland courses as a social enterprise with the aim to make woods accessible to people without degradation. It was founded by a retired schoolteacher who purchased a piece of land and invests his time in this voluntary work. The centre has been supported by the Wales Cooperative Centre, the regional Tourism Investment Fund and the Sustainable Development Fund of the local Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty organisation. It cooperates strongly with local third-sector organisations, such as mental health charities, special schools or the job centre. 19. Willow weaving courses, Wales, UK (UKWILL) “Out to Learn Willow” offers willow weaving courses to schools, community groups, therapeutic groups, and—in cooperation with the local council—for regional cultural activities, etc. The two women owners who previously worked as a teacher and a graphic designer founded the company out of their interest. They had experience in marketing and social networking, acquired the traditional weaving knowledge over time through courses and received support for the company start-up through the EU LEADER programme and a regional fund for rural development which benefited the promotion and marketing and the acquisition of equipment. 20. Country wines, Scotland, UK (UKWINE) The owner couple of a small rural company made a new business (“Cairn O’Mohr”) out of their hobby—making fruit wines from elderberries, oak leaves, etc. They acquired traditional knowledge and added their ideas for new recipes and marketing. They received small financial business support grants from a locally managed national programme. On the basis of in-depth reports on the single case studies, the analytical elements of our comparative analysis are assessed as shown in Table 1. 3.1. Type of Company/Organisation As shown in Figure 1, only two of our cases were (larger) public forest holdings, three were traditional farm owners and we had no other large landowner case represented. We know from other studies that—although such cases exist—NWFP or services are often not seen as a business opportunity by forest holdings, except if they focus on traditional products such as Christmas trees, gravel, or game (e.g., Rametsteiner et al., 2005). Three of our cases can be characterized as traditional forest products and only two were exclusively carried out within forestry (the Christmas tree ATXMAS and one game marketing case DEGAME). One game marketing case (ATGAME) collaborated with a butcher, in the Nature Park Specialties (ATNPS) the traditional farmers work together with nature conservation and the mushroom hotel (ESHOT) was created by a forest and hotel owner. The three new landowners either were motivated to live in the countryside (in- migrants from urban areas in FIBIR and UKFINE) or bought the land specifically (UKSKIL). Their cases have been developed completely outside forestry. Similarly, the cases of the not land-owning entrepreneurs were from outside forestry (5) or in cross-sectoral collaboration (4). The enterprises were founded with rural knowledge (3), urban (1) or a combination (5). In the two social enterprise cases, the impulses and support came from outside, but forestry knowledge was also necessary. In the industry-led case (ESRES), the interest came from a cosmetics company but the collaboration with forestry was necessary for organizing the renewed collection. The three institutional cases were all motivated by the aim to support regional/rural development through providing capacities for collaboration through the association of the Nature Parks (ATNPS), a Leader Action Group (ATLEAD), or the municipality (ITMAR). We learn from these results that traditional, larger, or smaller landowners are rather oriented towards traditional forestry products but that collaborations outside the sector may be helpful or necessary in certain cases. Ownership of forest land is not always necessary but a collaboration with landowners or their organisations can be very purposeful or even a prerequisite, particularly in larger-scale projects. We find cases with significant institutional support both with small-scale landowners and entrepreneurs as well as larger forest holdings and companies. Although institutional actors may help small businesses
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